. Back in 1967 after graduating from
a local two year
technical college, I went to work at North American Rockwell's
Columbus, Ohio plant. North American Aviation had merged with the
Rockwell Corporation to form North American Rockwell. The plant was
then producing, among other things, the RA-5C Vigilante. At that time
I
was already a die hard aviation enthusiast and model builder and found
the experience totally fascinating. To get to my work area from where
my ride parked (I didn't own a car at the time) I had to walk the
entire length of the final assembly line. So every day I could see the
progress made on each plane as it made its was down the line. The T-2B
Buckeye trainers were also being built in the same building as the
Vigi's so I some times took that route as well. At the head of the
assembly line was the heavy machining area where the one piece wing
skins were milled and machined and I found that fascinating as well.
My
job itself also has a tie in as I worked with a secret clearance in
the
antenna assembly area. My job was to build the band 7 passive ECM
receiving antenna
assembly of which two were used on the Vigi. The department I was in
was also responsible for one section of the "canoe" that mounted on
the
bottom of the fuselage as well as numerous other antennas used on the
Vigi. As an aside I also was involved with making some parts for
antennas used on the Apollo space capsule and built up a process
proving clothes line antenna assembly that was to be used on the then
new OV-10 Bronco. The band 7 were mounted one on each side of the
fuselage. Part of the bar on the star and bar insignia on the side of
the plane crossed the radome on the antenna. As a result of this
experience I had held out hopes for years that someone would make a
kit
in 1/48 and when Trumpeter announced it I could hardly wait.

The Vigilante was quite an
advanced aircraft for its time and among its many "firsts" was the
first use of an airborne digital computer for bomb and navigation
computations. It also had the first Bomb-Nav System with an inertial
auto navigation coupled to radar and television-sights for check point
verification. The Vigilante had the first heads-up display, the first
fully integrated auto pilot/air data system for Bomb/Nav weapons
release, the first monopulse radar with terrain avoidance features,
the
first variable inlet using horizontal ramp geometry and the first
production fly-by-wire control system.

The Vigilante was originally
intended to be a high performance attack aircraft with all weather
capability. North American received a letter of intent to build two
YA3J-1's in 1956. The Navy wanted a nuclear armed aircraft with Mach 2
capability to replace the AJ Savage, the Lockheed P-2 and the Douglas
A-3 Skywarrior. The aircraft made its first flight on August 31, 1956.
One unique feature of the Vigilante was its linear bomb bay, basically
a tunnel running the length of the rear fuselage between the engines.
The bay was equipped with rails, a catapult and stored a nuclear
weapon at the forward end. When the weapon was launched a disposable
tail cone was released, then the bomb attached to fuel tanks was
released. The fuel tanks contained fuel that was consumed prior to
reaching the target, thus they were empty when dropped and were
designed to stabilize the bomb as it fell to the target. The bay was
flexible in that it could carry other systems such as reconnaissance
instruments, auxiliary fuel tanks or other special equipment packages.
In service however the bomb ejection system never worked very well at
least from the accuracy standpoint.
While it met the Navy's high performance requirements it could not
carry a large enough non-nuclear conventional internal payload to
warrant large
scale production and the Navy soon realized that its strategic role
could be best performed by submarine launched missiles.

Despite a nearly trouble free
development period the Vigilante was not ordered into mass production
until 1959. These were intended to be conventional strike aircraft.
The
Vigilante's
first carrier landing was made aboard the USS Saratoga in July of
1960,
bringing the Navy into the Mach 2 world. In the 1960-61 period, the
Navy gave up its carrier-based strategic nuclear weapons role and that
left the Vigilante without a viable mission. Due to its ability to
accurately drop external stores and its speed capabilities a case was
made for its existence as a high speed low altitude bomber. The new
aircraft would be the A3J-2, later to be known as the A-5B. It
incorporated an increased internal fuel load, increased external
weapons capabilities, blown leading edge flaps an increased trailing
edge flap span, increased engine intake duct capture area and
increased
performance J79-GE-8 engines. Before the first A3J-2 made its first
flight in April of 1962, the A3J-3 was authorized for production with
yet another new mission as a high speed reconnaissance aircraft and
the
A3J-3 became the RA-5C. Eighteen aircraft were built as A-5B's and of
these twelve were re manufactured as RA-5C's. Forty-three were built
following these and in 1968 the line was reopened and an additional 36
were built bring the total of both new and rebuilt aircraft to 140
delivered to the Navy.

The Kit

I jumped on the presale of this
one with both feet. Only when some of the early reviews started coming
in was I a little let down. First there were issues with the shape of
the frontal part of the fuselage then reports of problems with the
bottom seam and finally intake shapes that varied depending on whether
the plane was early or late production. This was a bit of an issue as
I
wanted to build one representative of those that I made parts for.
Well
thanks to the after market folks these problems have been
addressed.

The Trumpeter kit comes in a
large heavy top open two part
box made entirely out of corrugated cardboard with attractive artwork
on the top. Inside the box there are numerous bags of parts as well as
a separate flap open box which is designed to float above the rest of
the parts and contains bags with the clear parts, the fuselage back
end
cap and the canoe for the bottom of the fuselage. With the exception
of
the fuselage halves which are in one bag, all the other bags have two
sprues in them. The kit is molded in a medium gray plastic with
recessed panel lines are fastener detail. Due to the complexity of the
kit I'm going to give a photo by photo analysis of the kit starting
with the fuselage shown below.

The fuselage halves are a fairly complex part that
must have given the mold makers some fits. On both halves there
is a seam line that runs from nose to tail. At the nose it is more of a
raised line but aft of the gear doors it's more of a depression. This
is more pronounced on the port side than the starboard. There is a
similar line that starts just aft of the bomb nav cockpit and
disappears near the trailing edge of the wing. Other than these marks
the fuselage halves are free of other defects and have a light amount
of flash. The panel lines are uniform but in my opinion the fastener
detail is a bit deep. I suspect it will look better once painted.
According to the "experts" the profile of the nose is not correct.
Unless you study a lot of photos I don't think it's all that noticeable
but if it bugs you a fix will be discussed later in this review. One
other problem that manifests itself during assembly is that the long
seam on the bottom tends to pucker inward due to lack of support
creating a difficult fill job, although this is some what hidden by the
canoe on the bottom. A fix is available for this as well and will be
covered later. The photo below points out the worst of the mold line.

The next two sprues contain the wings, tail, movable
control surfaces, wing pylons, flash pods main gear struts and doors and
various and sundry pieces. I found no surface defects and no ejector
pin marks that will show, not even on the main struts and gear doors.
There was little to no flash on the parts and only minimal parting
lines on some parts. See below.

The next two, of which only one is shown as they are
duplicates, have the engines, under wing tanks, main wheels and rims and
various other small parts. The engines are reasonably well detailed but
little of them will be seen when the kit is complete. There
was little to no flash on the parts and only minimal parting lines
on some parts. See below.

The next sprue has the wing center sections, the
intake ramps and numerous other parts including the nose gear strut,
nose cone, refueling probe and arrestor hook. The
rather delicate ramp side parts were individually wrapped with
foam to
protect them during shipping. There was little to no flash on the
parts
and only minimal parting lines on some parts. See below.

The next sprue has the main gear bay, cockpit
parts, slats and more doors, more intake ramp parts and the balance of
the miscellaneous parts. The cockpit has a good level of detail. There
was little to no flash on the parts and only minimal parting
lines on some parts. See below.

The last two parts were packaged in the box inside
the box and each were individually bagged. The tail cone does an
excellent job representing the poorly fitting tail cone. On the bomber
version this was to be an expendable part that was jettisoned when the
bomb was launched out the back. The other part is the so called canoe
that fit on the bottom of the plane and could be configured with a
variety of reconnaissance devices. See photo below. Assuming I counted
correctly there are 209 parts molded in gray.

The clear parts are thin and clear with frosted areas
where they need to be painted. Included are the pilots and bomb/ nav
operators instrument panels. A clear film with instruments is provided
to fit behind it. The balance of the clear parts are lens for the flash
pods, cameras, landing lights and others. See photo below. There are 20
clear parts bringing the kit total to 229, quite a box full of parts.

The decals appear thin and are in register. Included
are markings for two aircraft. Decals that fit over wing or tail folds
are in separate pieces. Most of the most noticeable stencils and
warning labels are included. The decals were bagged separately along
with the instrument panel films. See below.

The instructions consist of a sixteen page booklet
that is stapled together. The front page has a side view of the
aircraft, a "read before assembly" dissertation and an icon chart. Page
two has a parts map. The balance of the booklet is all assembly. Also
included is an 11" x 16" glossy page printed on one side with painting
and marking instructions.

After
Market Goodies

And now for the part where you take an expensive kit and
make it really expensive!

First lets deal with correction items. As I mentioned
above there is some issues with the shape of the nose section from the
inlets forward. The Cutting Edge set [CEC48486] provides corrected nose
halves molded in light gray resin. It features recessed panel lines but
no fastener detail. The parts are crisply molded with minimal flash and
areas to be trimmed away. There are no pour stubs. I found no surface
defects, pin holes or short shots. My major beef with these parts are
that the panel lines are lighter and without the rather over done rivet
detail that the rest of the fuselage exhibits. I think they will look
too much like a graft. The set includes are new pitot tube for the nose
cone. Other disadvantages include the nose cone, which on the kit can be
posed open but would need to be cut off the new nose in order to that.
Also the instructions warn that other after market cockpit sets
designed for the kit may required modification to fit as the kit nose
is too wide. The set comes with replacement clear parts as the kit
parts won't fit. These are cast and while clear are a bit thicker than
the kit parts and don't have as well defined frame lines and rivet
detail as the kit parts. The set also addresses an issue with the shape
of the top of the tail fin which in the kit is just wrong. The
replacement part does have rivet detail but it's a bit finer than the
kit so again it may make it standout more that the incorrect kit part.
The Set comes in a sturdy cardboard box with bubble pack between
layers. The gray parts are bagged separately from the clear and both
are in zip lock bags. The instructions are on an 8 1/2 x 11" sheet
printed on one side and while brief should be adequate. Another review
of this set can be found here. See
photos below.

I initially wanted to build a Vigilante in the
markings of the aircraft that discovered the Hanoi Hilton, for that
I needed an early version. The Trumpeter kit is
sort of a bastard in that it includes both early and late version
features. One late version feature I needed to replace was the
intakes.
The early versions were shaped differently. Again Cutting Edge to
the
rescue. Set number [CEC 48487] includes the correctly shaped early
version intakes along with a set of seamless intake trunks. There
are
molded in a light gray resin. The one piece intakes replace several
kit
parts and are beautifully detail. The parts are flash free. They do
have sizable pour blocks but the cuts are straight so should not be
that difficult. I found no surface
defects, pin holes or short shots. The set comes in a zip lock
bag and
I guess installing them must be self explanatory as there were
no
instructions with mine. See photo below.

And now for the detail oriented details.

The first set in this category is the Aires [4118]
Engine nozzle set. The kit parts pale in comparison to this set.
It
comes in a small cardboard box with the resin parts enclosed in a
zip
lock bag. The parts are molded in a gray resin and the level of
detail
in the tail feathers section is incredible. There was virtually no
flash to be seen and no pin holes or short shots. Included with
the set
is a small photo etch fret with two fuel injection rings. The
instructions are on a small sheet folded to fit the box. The set I
have
is labeled for the F-4 but they used the same engines as the
Vigilante.
Aires has since released a set labeled for the Vigilante. See the
photos below.

Next on the list is an Eduard Zoom set [49308] to
dress up the cockpit. I could never paint it up to look as nice as the
Eduard set. The Zoom sets aren't as complete as the full sets but there
is more than enough to take the cockpit to the next level. See photo
below.

And lastly to address the problem with the lower
fuselage during assembly the Nautilus [48-801] set which is made from
1/8" aircraft grade plywood and consists of four bulkheads that mount
to a center spline and provide internal support to prevent the bottom
fuselage seam from buckling inward. The parts are laser cut so they
just break free from the sheet. The back bulkhead has holes that will
accept the burner cans set above. It also has two intake plugs you can
use. The only drawback to the set is that you can't use the kit engines
but they can't be seen anyway. This
can be purchased here. See
photo below.

Pre
Build ConclusionsThe Trumpeter kit, like most
of their kits has a few things about it that just aren't right. Whether
these are things that will deal breakers when you decide to buy or not
to buy will be up to you. One would think as expensive as the kit is
that they would take the time to get it right but that is not always
the case. Adding all the above sets or even just the fuselage
correction set will add a considerable work load to the kit. From my
standpoint the panel lines on the nose need to be widened and deepened
to make them look more like the rest of the fuselage and the rivet
detail, even though it's a bit over done, added again to make it match
the rest of the kit. Not hard but certainly tedious. If I had known
that in advance I might have decided to let it go. As nuts as I have
gone with after market items one can go farther. There are separate
ejection seats and an entire resin cockpit that could be added as well
so it would be not that hard to double the cost of the already pricey
kit. Due to the complexity of the kit and the fit issues with the basic
kit I would only recommend it to modelers with a mid level of
experience and if you want to tackle the correction sets a higher level
of experience, especially with resin up grade kits.

The
BuildThe
first order of business was to determine what correction /
detail sets
to use. I spent a lot of time looking at photos, drawings and
test
fitting before deciding. Some were easy, others were not. Let's
start
with the replacement nose section from Cutting Edge. These guys
had a
good reputation for quality parts but when I checked out the
nose
section I was in for a bit of a let down. As you can see in the
photo
below the two halves are different lengths. Had Cutting Edge
still had
been in business, this would have been returned for replacement
or
refund ! The next two photos show it in more detail. Yeah, I
could
align the front and deal with the difference at the back and I
was
prepared to do that until I did some more investigation. More on
that
later.

Next
up are the Aries main gear bays. Really nice looking and the correct
depth. The kit parts are a bit too shallow. The next photo shows how
they look installed in the fuselage although it is not yet glued in
place.

Unfortunately if one uses them, you can forget about using the very nice
seamless intakes.

Which fit fine with the kit wheel bays. Decisions, decisions ! Final
decision will be later.

Next the Nautilus fuselage brace. This fit together nicely but I used
super glue instead of carpenters glue as I was in a hurry.

The bottom side shows the keel piece that allows you to get a flat even
seam on the bottom of the fuselage.

I
found that to use it with the Aries wheel bays I needed to cut a notch
to clear them and that is shown here. It in no way detracts from the
original purpose of the brace.

This shows how the assembly fits in the fuselage.

and how the bottom keel keeps the bottom seam flat. Without it the
flimsy fuselage halves want to buckle inwards.

I
went ahead and modified the wheel bay castings to clear the fuselage
brace, again removing this material does not in anyway weaken the
castings.

Back
to the nose section again. One of the complaints made against the kit
was that the nose area was too wide and the Cutting edge part was to
take care of that. I decided to take some measurements to see just what
the differences were. The photo below shows my results. Max difference
was .020". That's equal to about the thickness as 5 sheets of copy
paper. Give me a break !

And
comparing the side view the Cutting Edge part exhibits a sharper up
slope on the bottom side that wasn't apparent, to me anyway, in the
drawings I had. Well that did it for me, too much aggravation for
not enough gain, I went with the kit parts.

The
Cutting Edge canopies were cast, thicker and not as clear as the kit
parts and would have only worked with their nose so that was a no go as
well.

In the end I decided I wanted to use the seamless
intakes as they were way more visible than the gear bays so the kit
parts were used there. The Aires parts also came with a nice nose gear
bay but to use it one would need to hack off the rear portion of the
cockpit floor leaving no alignment for that area so it was not used
either. Although I did not photograph it I did need to cut semi circles
in the front bulkhead of the Nautilus brace in order to fit the
seamless intakes, but again this did not effect the brace's usefulness.

I
am now going to get on my soapbox and rant a bit. The wing on this
aircraft was thin enough that each wing section could have been molded
as one piece. In stead each one has 16 ill fitting parts. I'm sure the
dropped flaps and slats and folded wing guys love it but for the price
of this kit they could have saved the rest of us a lot of trouble and
aggravation. I did glue the slat and flap halves to the appropriate
half of the wing first as mentioned in the one build reviews at the
bottom of the page. Since I didn't do it the other way I can't say if
it was better but it did put all the fit issues on the leading and
trailing edges where it was easier to deal with. Dividing the wing up
this way may have boosted the parts but it was a waste in my case. Had
the parts fit been better it might have been OK, but they didn't !

In
the photo below the wing assemblies and tail parts have been assembled
and the rivet divots filled. The upper half of the tail is a Cutting
Edge part which corrects the angle of the top of tail which Trumpeter
got wrong. The part fit well but it could have been fixed without
it. Also of note the folding wing tips are thicker than the end of the
wing which would not be noticed if folded. I would have needed to file
one edge almost completely away to correct. In the end I matched the
top sides, sanded off some material on the bottom and used filler to
even things out. Didn't look great close up but not that noticeable
from a normal viewing distance.

First of many coats of primer.

The
cockpit is stock except for the Eduard parts which fit well but had the
usual color discrepancy. All rather one dimensional but OK for the
scale. Note: with the canopies closed almost nothing of the rear pit is
visible.

Fuselage joined, wings just test fit, some early painting going on.

Wings
glued on, canopies installed, I left the tail surfaces off till the end
as their single point mounting did not inspire confidence.

Ready for paint.

Paint and gloss coat on. Decals on tail.

And
ready for the display case. I used a Superscale decal set for
everything except the tail serial number and the codex numbers which I
printed myself. The Superscale decals worked great with only Micro Set
used under them.

Final Conclusions and Comments

First
in regards to the after market parts. If you read the blog
above you
should have a pretty good idea about what works and what
doesn't. With
Cutting Edge no longer active and the parts now going for
ridicules
prices on EBay they really aren't a choice and from my
perspective
aren't necessary. If I was going to get any of them the
seamless
intakes would be my choice but only if you are satisfied with
the kit
gear bays. The Nautilus fuselage brace is worth while but one
could
brace the lower seam with styrene strips as an alternative.
The Eduard
PE set does a nice job in the pit especially if you wish to
leave the
canopies open. Although not mentioned in the blog I did use
the Aries
burner cans. The afterburner flame retention screen did not
fit the
exhaust tube so I left it out and I did modify the Nautilus
brace for a
better fit and position of the cans but they look way better
than the
kit parts. Also not mentioned any where else as it was a last
minute
addition was a Master turned brass pitot tube, which is most
excellent
and more durable than the kit part. The kit will be an easier
build if
you leave the slats and flaps in their extended positions and
fold the
wing tips. The tail issue can be fixed with sanding sticks if
you find
the Cutting Edge part too expensive or unavailable. Overall
the kit
just doesn't fit well, I used a lot of putty on this one
beyond filling
the rivet divots. A pity that such a significant aircraft was
not given
better treatment. I have built several other Trumpeter kits
and while
they may not fit like a Tamiya kit they were way better than
this kit.
Had this been the first Trumpeter kit I built,I probably would
not have
tried another. Caveat Emptor !